Some day, far down the road, we'll be sitting with our grandchildren at our feet. As we rock in our holochairs watching the virtual sunset in our Googlezon immersi-room, we'll get all nostalgic. We'll look back on the period of May to June 2013 fondly, remembering all those memes we posted and those angry diatribes we wrote. We'll look down fondly at those tiny children, busy killing zombies in ActiBethesdaValve-Blizzard's Portal to World of Call of Fallout 6, and we'll say something like the following:

"Little Jimmy, did I ever tell you about the days when I fought and won in the great Microsoft used-game/Internet check-in battle of '13?"

It's a bit too easy to say that Microsoft's surprise reversal of its controversial game licensing policies today was just a reaction to the strident voices of a few on the Internet—that may have been how it started, though. In the high-pressure echo chamber of E3 last week, the unfortunate impression of Microsoft's next system started to leak into the mainstream, getting ink in big namenewspapers and magazines and even getting an applause-grabbing negative mention on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night. When your system is on the verge of becoming a joke for a late night comedian, you know something must be done.

Of course, if Sony followed Microsoft's lead in pushing the same kinds of potential restrictions on game discs, Microsoft probably could have ridden out any negative reaction to its decision. If Microsoft and Sony united on these issues, gamers would be left with nowhere to turn. Mobile and tablet games aren't nearly mature enough, the Wii U is not powerful enough to offer a true alternative for a large block of gamers, and the PC never had used games (and often uses online checks for many titles). Instead, Sony loudly called Microsoft out at its E3 press conference, garnering a huge reaction from both the press and gamers and potentially accelerating Microsoft's reversal.

Many will see today's decision as a loss for the game publishers that are often quite vocal in their hatred for used game sales, which they see as taking money directly out of their pockets. But there are some indications that the publishers weren't really pushing for the kinds of restrictions Microsoft was planning to allow on Xbox One games. In fact, many publishers were seemingly caught flat-footed when the policy was announced. What's more, not a single publisher was willing to publicly say that it would take advantage of the new used-disc-blocking abilities Microsoft gave them, perhaps fearing the public reaction they had already seen Microsoft receive. Without more explicit support from publishers, Microsoft was left twisting in the wind.

A Pyrrhic victory?

Here's the thing, though: we may have all actually lost something in winning today. In his statement, Microsoft's Don Mattrick said the company "imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games" in crafting its original Xbox One licensing policy. It's not too hard to envision a number of benefits that were only really feasible in a world where all Xbox One games were installed to a hard drive and connected to a cloud-equipped Xbox Live account that checked in regularly.

Maybe Microsoft could have created a Netflix style "all-you-can-play" deal that gave players access to a large portion of the system's library for a set monthly price. Maybe a more limited, digital GameFly could allow for rotating, user-selected game downloads that changed every month. Maybe they could have allowed players to loan any of their digital games to anyone around the world for a limited, 12-hour test run as a way to spread the word about an excellent title. Maybe they could have announced a set pricing structure that encouraged downloadable games to drop down to a percentage of their original price months or years after their release.

Here's the problem: Microsoft didn't do any of those things. Any of these benefits remained "imagined," while the benefits that were actually announced were weak tea. Microsoft's "easier roaming" by downloading your games at a friend's house wasn't easier at all—these remote downloads would have actually been much less convenient than just bringing along a disc. The 10-member "family sharing" plan sounded intriguing, but Microsoft couldn't answer extremely basic questions about how it worked. Could two people play two different shared games in your library at the same time? No one at Microsoft seemed willing to say. Being able to play your entire library on your hard drive without having to get up and switch discs is nice, but it's hardly a "killer app" given the drawbacks.

The way Microsoft rolled out its vision of the brave new digital-focused future was full of concrete negatives and only fuzzy, imagined positives. If Microsoft announced some truly revolutionary (and value-adding) digital game sharing and renting policies alongside its online requirements and used game restrictions, maybe the medicine would have gone down better. As it stood, the massive backlash was practically inevitable.

When I got back from E3 last week, I called my mom for a regular check-in. Obviously, I brought up the show and the battle between Sony and Microsoft. When I described Microsoft's game licensing policies to her, she said they were "the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard."

When she asked incredulously why Microsoft did what it did, I found myself fumbling for an answer. Despite recently having a long sit down with Microsoft's marketing chief where he was tasked with answering this very question, I found myself struggling. I couldn't easily explain to my own mother why in the world she should see Microsoft's "digital future" as anything but stupid.

This was, in effect, the problem. Microsoft's moves to slowly strangle the life out of the disc-based game failed the "mom test" because there was nothing strong enough to counterbalance the obvious hassles and annoyances that it imposed. And that's a shame, because it's not that hard to envision the world that Microsoft apparently did, where purely digital game libraries actually let console makers and publishers offer new and interesting ways to get access to their games, in exchange for those disc-based and online-connected annoyances. But Microsoft utterly and completely failed to sell that vision, so here we are.

By the time the next generation of consoles rolls around, we may not be so lucky. High-speed Internet access will be nearly ubiquitous in many countries by then, and the cost and speed of bandwidth will have progressed enough that shipping discs to stores will seem like a costly and slow anachronism (see: record stores, Borders, Blockbuster video). Chances are, by then, the major console makers will finally be bold enough to eliminate physical media from their hardware plans altogether (see: iTunes, Kindle, Netflix, Hulu, et al.).

At that point, no amount of screaming by the principled faithful is going to convince a critical mass of people that they should be able to sell or loan out a product that exists only as bits in the cloud. The major players could easily see fit to just not enable any kind of digital sharing or resale features without too much backlash (see: Steam, iTunes).

So yes, the market has spoken and the Internet won today. The forces that would have changed the way your gaming discs worked were rebuffed and forced back by sheer will. But in another way, we all lost the potential to see whatever Microsoft's vision of the digital future actually was. Instead in all likelihood, we'll eventually get a digital future that looks a lot like the digital present—only without any discs at all.

Promoted Comments

If MS REALLY wanted to do what they said they would, they could have kept both parts, download only games would function as previously described with all the check ins, disabled if you can't check in, and family sharing, while disc based games would be playable with the disc in the drive, playable offline and have the ability to be resold, traded, etc.

They didn't need to choose an "either/or."

The trouble was it wasn't about "teh future!" It was about killing off GameStop and securing extra revenue for the publishers (which would then heap MS with exclusives). But keeping both worlds, digital with the extras and physical media with the rights, doesn't kill GameStop. If it really was going to be a transitional phase from physical to digital media, they would keep both.

They could still implement those neat sharing features as a perk of games purchased through XBox Live. It would be a nice little push to get people to buy digitally while still acknowledging people who have shitty internet and can't do much with it. No one misses out on new games that come out, and they still get to toy around with the new features in a way that could be acceptable for the masses.

Which is it, folks? Is disc-based DRM king of gaming and the mandate of the people, or is digital sharing a good thing that, thanks to a combination of HORRIFIC PR and band-wagoning, isn't coming anymore?

I think the point is that we want to see rights retained AND see progress in distribution and use of media.

People recognized the problem with physical sales since it was clear that MS was taking something away, and people generally GET physical sales. You can hold it in your hand, so you should own it.

The conundrum here is that 100% digital distribution today (and in the forseeable future) gives the consumer ZERO rights. Someone else gets to decide what you do with your property. It's not limited to games (and it's not purely limited to digital distribution, though that's the biggest problem)

You can opt-in to daily checks if you want to play without the disc. If you lose internet you have to put the disc back in.

For disc resale, flag disc based installs on your account that are opted in so that when you uninstall the game the license is released. GameStop or whoever is still going to have to verify somehow that the license was released, though. If there was a unique id in the disc they would be able to put the disc in a reader of sorts that connects to Xbox Live and verifies that it's free and clear. That only works in retail scenarios, but GameStop could offer a disc check for a small fee for when you sell your disc to a friend. That sounds like an extra step for friend to friend sales, sure, but that's only if you opted in to play without a disc. They would do the check regardless if you are selling to them.

(The previous two points could be hard to implement so not allowing to opt in for disc-less play would be OK.)

Keep all of the sharing options (10 family members etc.) for digital downloads and disc based installs that opted in. If the game owner goes offline, make the disc based shared games unavailable.

Allow the Kinect to be turned off unless a game requires it.

Drop the price $50. $100 is too big of a gap. A $50 difference is easier to justify, especially if Xbox has more to offer for going disc-less.

I would love to see this implemented, it would be the best of both worlds and I would recommend the Xbox One to every one I know, no matter their preference or internet situation.

It seems that they could have had a much more nuanced change in their DRM policies. We could have had the best of both worlds - an in-between place between what we had last generation and what we're getting in the next.

My guess is they were running out of time to control the snowballing bad PR. This was playing real-world havoc on sales projections and the need for a strong launch. They were forced, then, to retreat back to the easiest policy imaginable: the status-quo.

Once they have time to think it through, we'll probably see some of the more progressive, consumer friendly, ideas come back.

Goddammit, if I have to swap out discs to play different games on the XBone, I will stab the internet. You fucking guys.

I'm hoping this was sarcasm and I just missed it. Maybe I just don't have that level of ADHD but generally I'm playing one game at a time, or at most if I decide to start playing another game, I don't have much trouble swapping discs. I've never scratched a disc (wife did once, but that was from accidentally kicking a PS2 while I was playing), I have all of my cases, and a game comes out of the machine it goes into the right case. Honestly, from getting up off the couch to sitting back down you are talking about less then a minute. How often are you changing from one game to another (not counting XBox Live games as you still don't have disc swapping for them).

consoles are dead, this is their last gasping breath, these hybrids are more desktop than classic console now, what we are actually deciding today is what the policy for playing games on our computers in the future will be and people want freedom of their media, which is a win for consumers.

Steam will be a more than viable option come the next Console cycle, so this is a win all the way around

You can opt-in to daily checks if you want to play without the disc. If you lose internet you have to put the disc back in.

For disc resale, flag disc based installs on your account that are opted in so that when you uninstall the game the license is released. GameStop or whoever is still going to have to verify somehow that the license was released, though. If there was a unique id in the disc they would be able to put the disc in a reader of sorts that connects to Xbox Live and verifies that it's free and clear. That only works in retail scenarios, but GameStop could offer a disc check for a small fee for when you sell your disc to a friend. That sounds like an extra step for friend to friend sales, sure, but that's only if you opted in to play without a disc. They would do the check regardless if you are selling to them.

(The previous two points could be hard to implement so not allowing to opt in for disc-less play would be OK.)

Keep all of the sharing options (10 family members etc.) for digital downloads and disc based installs that opted in. If the game owner goes offline, make the disc based shared games unavailable.

Allow the Kinect to be turned off unless a game requires it.

Drop the price $50. $100 is too big of a gap. A $50 difference is easier to justify, especially if Xbox has more to offer for going disc-less.

I would love to see this implemented, it would be the best of both worlds and I would recommend the Xbox One to every one I know, no matter their preference or internet situation.

That's not true, though. There's nothing preventing Microsoft from giving the same benefits they were going to offer to digital only content.

Seriously, just imagine if they instead were like "Even though you are paying the same price to buy games digitally as opposed to the disks, our infrastructure allows you to loan these games to your friends, just like you could loan them your disk."

By leaving disk games working as they always have, but providing a way to loan your digital content out, they would have actually provided a BENEFIT for having regular check-ins. Even if it wouldn't necessarily need to occur; if you go online to loan the game, then go offline, your console is going to think you don't own it until you go back online to retrieve the game.

And there's nothing about this change to their policies to suggest they couldn't do this, either. To go whole hog away from their purported "benefits" gives the impression that they're trying to punish consumers for not mindlessly jumping on board.

At first this does seem like this could have been a golden opportunity to deliver the planned "benefits" of family sharing, essentially sticking to the plan, just for digital downloads while, reverting the Discs back to the Xbox 360 model.

That way disks keep working the way they always did, and they get to trial the new system for downloaded games, and let the market decide which model they will choose.

But I don't think this was possible from a PR perspective, Microsoft messaging had become to tainted, there could be no waffling in this statement. They had to do the clean break and jettison all the online/checkin requirements, and so the "benefits" went with it.

They still have a chance to show us that those features are positive, without forcing everyone to be connected. I hope they do, but either way this about-face is good news. Broadband, especially with high or no data caps, isn’t ubiquitous yet. It was too early to pull a major shift like that.

It seems that they could have had a much more nuanced change in their DRM policies. We could have had the best of both worlds - an in-between place between what we had last generation and what we're getting in the next.

My guess is they were running out of time to control the snowballing bad PR. This was playing real-world havoc on sales projections and the need for a strong launch. They were forced, then, to retreat back to the easiest policy imaginable: the status-quo.

Once they have time to think it through, we'll probably see some of the more progressive, consumer friendly, ideas come back.

At first this does seem like this could have been a golden opportunity to deliver the planned "benefits" of family sharing, essentially sticking to the plan, just for digital downloads while, reverting the Discs back to the Xbox 360 model.

Yes, this suggestion had been brought up several times in the last article about this (once by me even). It is the obvious best option. But Microsoft determined that it didn't serve their interests to do this.

What we have here, is an MSFT failure to communicate and market effectively.

No, what we have here is consumers shrugging off marketing spin and arriving at the realization that, not only would they be getting dicked in the short term, they'll also be at the whims of the benevolent console maker to keep those servers running in the long term.

There's simply no reason whatsoever to demand daily check-ins on a gaming platform that has been largely devoid of piracy. Nor is it of any benefit to the consumer to cripple used games, no matter how much the publishers whine about it.

Orland makes all sorts of thin speculations about potential benefits that Microsoft NEVER had any intention of offering, otherwise they would have been touting them with guarantees. They could still offer nearly every single one of those things as a value-added feature in a disc-based system, all without the needy check-ins, used game crippling, and removing control from the customer.

Orland and Bright seem to love banging out Op-Eds defending unpopular points of view. Unfortunately, I think they must be engaged in some sort of hipster journalist competition, because they utterly fail to make convincing arguments every time.

The announcement today disappointed me. I regularly swap games with a friend who lives a long way away, so the family sharing was a big win for me. As far as I was concerned the biggest issue was going to be holding the serial number up to the Kinect for validation (or however they did it).

I get that not everyone has a permanent internet connection, so I am aware my position is a touch selfish. But broadband is improving in mot places. The used game side of things was just badly handled (they made this worse than they needed to to achieve the overall aim).

Apple annoyed a lot of people when they removed the floppy disk drive, and ultimately that proved to be a few years too late if anything. The idea of having to continually swap disks around (either to change games or share with friends) is ultimately due to die sooner rather than later.

Still, the internet isn't entirely to blame for this, Microsoft did a pathetic job of actually conveying their vision

Just a small note.. At least here in Canada there was a used PC game market for a time .. That is until game companies were somehow able to take it away.

There was definitely a pre-owned market for PC games in the UK too. I used to pick them up at blockbuster. This was of course before the age of Steam (which more or less made pre owned games pointless for me) so I don't know if anyone still does them but I doubt it.

Second hand market for PC games died some time ago. There are, as far as I know, two main reasons behind that:* Banned Half Life / Counterstrike CD Keys, so you might buy a game that you could not play online (I am talking about CS 1.2 era)* One time CD/DVD Keys tied to a given online account, for example any Steam (e.g. Half Life 2), GFWL (e.g. Bulletstorm) or Origin (e.g. Mass Effect 2) games

After all, you cannot slide a new game DVD into your computer and expect to play it inmidiately.

Second hand market died in PC because the prices of new games became low enough for people to not care whether it's second hand or not.

The whole point of a console is to be able to play right now, turn it on sit down, get your game on.

I wisht that was the case for PS3 games. You could see how popping in Heavy Rain, MGS4 or GT5 disc into the PS3 for the first time makes you wait long enough. Hopefully that is fixed this time around.

The same tech that allows them to stream digital games you buy and let you start playing them once they're only partially downloaded should certainly help with this. Instead of streaming from net to hard drive you're streaming from disk to hard drive.

At first this does seem like this could have been a golden opportunity to deliver the planned "benefits" of family sharing, essentially sticking to the plan, just for digital downloads while, reverting the Discs back to the Xbox 360 model.

Yes, this suggestion had been brought up several times in the last article about this (once by me even). It is the obvious best option. But Microsoft determined that it didn't serve their interests to do this.

The post I was quoting also says this. My point was that it was impossible to do this from a PR perspective. At this point they have so poisoned the waters, that any sign of an online requirement, would torpedo their attempt to dig themselves out of the mountain of shit, they created for themselves.

It doesn't matter what kind of conveniences you see in digital delivery, the fundamental problem is that it does not benefit the consumer to have console makers control both physical hardware and software distribution, especially when the hardware is essentially sold as loss leader to recoop costs via software sales.

This isn't Apple who cab push cheap apps because makes all their money on high margin hardware.

Or google who can afford to eat shit on cheap Nexus because they make money off advertising.

Or Steam who push spectacular sales because they must compete with other online vendors and piracy.

This is Microsoft (or Sony) who make their money pushing media, who has every incentive to control distribution and hence, supply on a hardware and software level via DRM. They can effectively eliminate used game market, retail, casual lending and piracy if they want to. This is how we end up with terribly anticompetitive mobile/cable/internet practices.

Aside from what folks might think about DRM or 'cloud' features, Microsoft's rules just seemed *way* too complicated for the average person. It would be quite difficult for people to understand when they could or couldn't share a game or sell a game. (Especially if those rules varied by publisher or even by game.)

There was no reason for MS to kill digital sharing and trading and full portability support for downloaded games, and yet that's exactly what they seem to have done. After first declaring that digital and disc-based games would be practically the same (so there was no reason to buy digital games over disc-based ones), now they're going back to the old system where disc-based games are superior in every way (so there's no reason to buy digital games over disc-based ones) - even though their entire goal was to shift the market to all-digital. They could easily have announced today that "game discs will work like they always have, but if you guy your games from the XBox Live store, you'll be able to share them with friends and family while still playing your copy, and you can even give them away to people on your friends list." That would be a HUGE leap toward "Steam on consoles," which is supposedly what they're trying to do. But instead, it's back to the status quo.

Thanks, MS. You've been idiots about this from the beginning, so I guess there was no reason to stop now.

Pre-ordered the Ps4 after e3 and look forward to playing Destiny on it.

I just can't trust even this reversal after all the drips and dribbles of data. Even MS couldn't seem to understand their new policy. If they couldn't, why should I get a headache trying to figure it out?

maybe i am too ignorant to understand the wonders that would have been WBone 180 but...Sorry Halo. You just aren't a big enough selling point.

But Sony, who actually had a reversal and took away features they promised AFTER people bought a product....you can trust them?

did you ever actually use linux on your PS3? And if you did, then you know that all you have to do is wipe the firmware update, right???

It doesn't matter what kind of conveniences you see in digital delivery, the fundamental problem is that it does not benefit the consumer to have console makes control both physical hardware and software distribution, especially when the hardware is essentially sold as loss leader to recoop costs via software sales.

This isn't Apple who push cheap apps because makes all their money on overpriced hardware. Or google who can afford to eat shit on cheap Nexus because they make money off advertising.

This isn't Steam who push spectacular sales because they compete with other online vendors and piracy.

This is Microsoft (or Sony) who makes their money pushing media, who has every incentive to control distribution and supply on a hardware and software level via DRM. They can effectively eliminate used game market, retail, casual lending and piracy. This is how we end up with terribly anticompetitive mobile/cable/internet practices.

Apple's 30% fee to publish on their marketplace is a MASSIVE chunk compared to the licensing fee Microsoft charges per disc (which is and has always been identicaly to Sony and Nintendo), and their certification fee is a one time 50,000USD fee (also identical to Sony and Nintendo).

well, people could've actually waited until the product was released to see how it works. if you're concerned about something, you wait for someone to review it. simple

"these remote downloads would have actually been much less convenient than just bringing along a disc."the downloads allow you to begin "streaming" the game almost immediately. so that you can start playing before it's actually done downloading... just like Office 365's streaming apps.

it's analogous to a streaming music service. surely, you wouldn't argue that having access to your entire music library is less convenient?

consoles are dead, this is their last gasping breath, these hybrids are more desktop than classic console now, what we are actually deciding today is what the policy for playing games on our computers in the future will be and people want freedom of their media, which is a win for consumers.

Steam will be a more than viable option come the next Console cycle, so this is a win all the way around

I agree with you. The whole console concept seems like an anachronism from the '80s.

Microsoft needs to follow through with all its lofty promises for DIGITAL copies of games. Enable the family sharing, lower prices, reselling hub, etc but only for the digital copies. SHOW people how the future works. Give them a reason to abandon the hard copy. But don't break the hard copy to do it. Let each consumer decide where they find the greater value

Did Microsoft ever stop to think that they could, and still can, do all of those sharing things with digital purchases? They obviously know what titles you have that are digitally purchased, and an online connection in order to validate digital purchases is not unreasonable. People then can choose if they want disk based versions for sneakernet lending and resale, or digital versions for the new programs. They shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Disk based games need the disk check, but can still be installed to the hard drive, as is currently the case.If they make digital purchases compelling enough, then that idea will win in the marketplace, and can be phased out in the next console.

consoles are dead, this is their last gasping breath, these hybrids are more desktop than classic console now, what we are actually deciding today is what the policy for playing games on our computers in the future will be and people want freedom of their media, which is a win for consumers.

Steam will be a more than viable option come the next Console cycle, so this is a win all the way around

Yes, this suggestion had been brought up several times in the last article about this (once by me even). It is the obvious best option. But Microsoft determined that it didn't serve their interests to do this.

Or, more likely, they couldn't get permission to do that in time to make this announcement. I've little doubt Microsoft would determine, in a vacuum, that doing this would be in their interest-- it'd be a stunning piece of good PR. Problem is, they don't make every game their console sells. They can't just say "this is how all games will work".

Now, they DO happen to publish a couple of pretty popular games. They CAN decide to implement that option for their own games, and they CAN put the onus on the publishers to allow it. And they really, really should.

" I called my mom for a regular check-in. Obviously, I brought up the show and the battle between Sony and Microsoft. When I described Microsoft's game licensing policies to her, she said they were "the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard.""

Did you wash her mouth out with soap?… That's what my mom would've done to me had I talk to her like that!

It's worth pointing out that We The Internet did not tell Microsoft that we did not want their good ideas. We simply told them that we were not going to swallow specific inconvenient and transparently self-serving "features" of their system, particularly not when their competitor was willing to sell a system without those features.

If Microsoft isn't willing to explore their good ideas apart from their self-serving bad ones, that's their fault, not ours. It's also more their problem than it is ours - Microsoft's trepidation is an opportunity for every other company in the market.

The sub-headline is pretty frustrating. Most publications simply piled on the Sony PR of how awful the future was and how everybody loves discs. Now I see a ton of articles about how this widely demanded about-face is "everyone's loss"?

Which is it, folks? Is disc-based DRM king of gaming and the mandate of the people, or is digital sharing a good thing that, thanks to a combination of HORRIFIC PR and band-wagoning, isn't coming anymore?

I agree with this question. My take on it has been against what Microsoft was attempting to do the entire time. My reason is not that I outright think a move to digital media backed by the cloud and roaming profiles is flawed in and of itself. Instead, I think it would be a welcome evolution and innovation that could carry gaming experiences into the future but - and this is the key - they'd have to prove from the start that they had a very well thought out plan and be able to clearly explain their intentions; they'd have to sell it in a way that shows they had planned ahead and considered every possible option and figured ways that could make the transition as smooth and convenient as possible; as a gamer and consumer I'd like to feel that they are truly looking out for my best interests and proving that my rights as a consumer weren't being thrown out the window.

Instead, Microsoft has remained tight-lipped about so many of the issues and confusions surrounding various aspects of this system. When they have responded it usually turned out to be very vague and often showed them to either not know answers to some seemingly simple questions about how things would work under this system, or they'd just finish with "We'll have more details on this at some later point". For a company the size of Microsoft, that has been around as long as they have, it is unacceptable that they could be this far into the development of a product and still not have a clear, concise plan laid out. The way they've handled everything about this - from researching their intended audience to PR responses - has been seemingly below even what one might expect of an amateur player just entering the business as a start-up. While I am willing to give them credit for finally changing course (to some degree - there are still a few other issues with it they could fix) because at the end of the day this is preserving competition in the marketplace (which is beneficial to consumers), it is still pretty amazing that they resisted the tide for so long and with such arrogance that they have certainly turned a number of people away from them.

There has to be a middle road to go down that can satisfy both sides of this debate. Unfortunately it doesn't look like Microsoft will take those steps.

They try too hard to force consumers into their vision of the future and people naturally fought back. One day it might be all digital, but the DRM, the restrictions, the license-but-not-own format does not sit well with most people.

edited for clarification. Microsoft taught me that.

not for the crowd that wanted nothing but 1990 inspired consoles. middle of the road meant compromise. this crowd full of idiots doesn't compromise. they wanted a clone of the sony model, enjoy it.

I actually like this decision. being a PC gamer, seeing console gamers screw themselves up for a few bucks a gamestop which will resell the disc they purchased for 30 bucks for 55 is enjoyable. lol morons.

Some may have hated Microsoft for what they tried to push into the next generation, but I think it would have had some benefits that would have paid out in the long run.

It sounded like they were going after what steam has accomplished. Steam, however, had the advantage of only having to worry about the software as all PC gamers already own an open and internet connected (as far as Steam is concerned anyways) platform. Microsoft is in the disadvantageous position of having to try and control the hardware and software to steer that direction, and only getting a shot at change once every 8-9 years.

Microsoft started poorly with their games on demand, but have recently really started to prove that they can get some good discounts going with their deal of the week and publisher sales. That is what every gamer really wants. Steam has proven that lots of people could care less about DRM if you make it convenient and sell cheap games. If Microsoft could create a strong digital platform and then start doing steep game sales like they've started, we would all love it.

Everyone hated Steam at first, but it's detractors are dwindling. Heck, Microsoft could have even been the digital platform for what the Humble Bundle or GOG has done with DRM free games. Since everyone in the console market would be tied to that hardware and Microsoft's digital sales platform for years, they could have given game developers the opportunity to sell games without download/gamertag restrictions - although I suppose that is still a possibility for people that are online

as a PC gamer, I hate console gamers. Now they're back at gamestop paying 60 dollars for a game and getting back 35 bucks to never play again, while I buy my games on steam for 35 bucks to keep forever.

console gamers will deal with scratched discs, horrible lines and pre-orders. all gone from pc gaming thanks to steam.

console gamers, you asked for the hell, you earned it. enjoy living in the past. you deserve every little bit of it.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.